


Be My Horizon

by iridiumring92



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blind Noctis, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Post-Altissia, Scars, sad but with a hopeful ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 02:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13626876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridiumring92/pseuds/iridiumring92
Summary: Noctis confronted Ardyn in Altissia.The fight left the Crown Prince of Lucis with scars he never expected.





	Be My Horizon

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't planning to write this prompt... but then I started and I couldn't stop after the first few paragraphs. I had to see it through to the end.
> 
> For Ignoct Week 2018 Day 4: Noctis goes blind instead of Ignis.

He opens his eyes too soon, and he’s alone and cold and his head aches.

His whole body hurts, actually, like he’s been bent out of shape, broken and put back together. He tries to sit up and is rewarded with fresh waves of pain, coursing from his shoulders to his feet. At this he barely suppresses a whimper.

The world around him is pitch-black.

Noctis stretches out a hand, feeling the cold, wet stone beside him. Why is this place so dark? Has he died? Is this after?

He spends several minutes focusing on blinking, fighting the pain, trying to breathe. Has it been minutes, or hours? He can’t tell, not from the light. Will anyone find him?

“Noct!” a familiar voice shouts from behind him, and he stretches instinctively to see who it belongs to, but instead his body responds with agony shooting like lightning through his spine. He can’t see the source of the voice anyway.

“Noct,” the voice says again. Sweet, accented—and so worried. _Ignis._ He feels someone else’s arms encircle his shoulders, try to raise him to a sitting position. Noctis winces in pain at this, ends up lying across Ignis’s lap, catching his breath. Ignis is warm.

“Iggy, is he there? Is he—okay?” Prompto, speaking from somewhere farther away, hesitates before finishing his question, but Noctis knows how it nearly ended. _Is he alive?_

“He’s breathing,” Ignis says in reply. To Noctis he asks, “Are you in pain? What happened?”

Noctis squeezes his eyes shut. “Lots of pain, yeah,” he manages, mostly through clenched teeth. “I—”

He intends to answer Ignis’s question, but before he can speak more than a word, he’s falling. He’s in this very spot, several hours ago, facing Ardyn Izunia, and Luna, unconscious with bloodstains on her white dress. Noctis feels ill. The ground beneath him is unsteady. He doesn’t remember the words he said, but he can still hear Ardyn’s voice.

“Let’s see how you cope with this, _true king._ ”

The words are mocking, as is Ardyn’s expression as he gathers darkness itself into one hand and flings it in Noctis’s direction.

His vision blacks out, and he feels his body propelled through the air, just before his back hits a stone pillar. Hard. His head cracks against it, and he collapses.

“Noct?” Ignis asks, and he feels a warm hand against his cheek. “Noct, please. Are you all right?”

Noctis draws in a breath. It hurts. Everything hurts. “I can’t see,” he gasps, his voice breaking.

He expects Ignis to ask what he means, but instead he just breathes, “ _Gods,_ ” and traces a thumb across Noctis’s cheekbone.

“What?” Noctis asks, increasingly desperate, his voice arcing up an octave in his fear and pain and hysteria. “What is it?”

There’s silence, and though Noctis can’t see, he feels the presence of the others around him. Gladio and Prompto. He wishes he could see them. What did he say to them, the last time he saw them? He can feel his eyes stinging with bitter tears. This isn’t fair. This isn’t _fair—_

“You’ve some rather deep wounds,” Ignis says quietly, interrupting his thoughts. “I’m sorry.”

“Fix them,” Noctis demands. He knows he sounds like a child, a whimpering, crying child, but he’s past caring. “Get rid of them. You have medicine, don’t you? _Fix them._ ”

“Noct . . .” Prompto says. He says nothing more, but Noctis knows what that tone means. It means _There’s nothing we can do._ It means _Noct, please, just calm down._ And it’s an apology.

Noctis lashes out.

“ _Where am I?”_ he demands, stirring even though every movement sends pain shooting through his body. He pushes with one arm against Ignis, fist hitting him in the chest, and one of Ignis’s hands wraps around Noctis’s wrist in an attempt to keep him from hurting anyone. “I can’t _see,_ and I’m cold, and I need _medicine_ —” He lands a hit to Ignis this time, who doubles over, a small sound of pain escaping him. Someone else takes hold of his arms. Strong hands—probably Gladio. Noctis resents it. “Fuck the gods and their stupid rites, I hate this.”

He keeps fighting, even though he knows he can’t match Gladio’s strength, even though he knows it’s worthless. But at last his strength gives out, and he goes limp.

His face is wet, hot tears and cold rain.

“I wish I were dead,” he says.

Ignis pulls him against his body, gingerly, so that the two of them are chest to chest, so that Noctis can bury his face in Ignis’s neck. He sobs, uncontrollably, because he will never look at Ignis—never look at _any of them_ —again. He doesn’t know how he’ll fight blind. He doesn’t know how he’ll be king, blind. He doesn’t know how to keep living at all.

Around him, the others are silent. Even Ignis, who rubs his back, gently. He doesn’t even try to shush Noctis or tell him that it’s going to be all right.

It’s not going to be all right.

Time seems to stop again, around the four of them, in the rain and the remains of Altissia.

 

* * *

 

Another morning, Noctis opens his eyes in a hotel room in Altissia, blinking into what appears to him to be darkness. Maybe it’s morning, maybe not. He can’t tell anymore.

He hears Ignis’s voice, soft, beside him. Probably Noctis’s slight shifting alerted him to the fact that he’d woken, although Noctis knows he thrashes in his sleep, too, so maybe it’s just a sense. “It’s nine-thirty.”

“Early,” Noctis mumbles, throwing an arm over his face, and Ignis laughs quietly.

“Noct, ah . . . do you want someone to sleep beside you, at night?” Ignis asks, tentative, after a few moments. “I know it’s difficult, your condition, and I don’t want you to be frightened to wake and find someone else in your bed, but . . .”

“But you miss it?” Noctis asks, almost hopefully. He understands what Ignis means, but somehow it’s even more terrifying, waking up to find the sheets on the other side of the bed cold, and not knowing whether anyone else is in the room.

He’d gotten used to sleeping beside Ignis in their tent, and turning sideways into his warmth when he was sure no one else was awake or likely to notice. To feel Ignis pulling him against him when he woke from nightmares, feel his breath as he whispered reassurances. To wake on what should have been unpleasantly early mornings and feel Ignis’s warm hand against his back, tracing soft patterns. He endured the nights alone when they were at motels, but those were few and far between.

Ignis, beside him, is silent a moment. “Noct?” he finally asks.

“What is it?” There’s a note of worry, maybe even trepidation, in Ignis’s voice, and it scares him. He’s also grown used to hearing certainty and logic from Ignis. The unsteadiness now is unnerving.

“May I . . . share something with you?” Ignis begins. “It’s rather personal, so I don’t want . . .”

“Go ahead,” Noctis says, wholeheartedly.

Ignis clears his throat. “Mm . . . do you think you can sit up?”

“I think so?” It comes out as a question. He can feel for the edge of the bed, ease his legs over it, but he still has to hope he doesn’t fall. His body still thrums with the echoes of his injuries. His legs are bare, as he’s in just a T-shirt and his underwear, and he feels the sheets shifting against his skin. His feet won’t reach the floor. As he makes the movements, he hears Ignis stand up from his chair and move to his side, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks.”

“Well,” Ignis says. “I know it’s been quite a long time since we’ve been . . . together, and I know things have been difficult, recently, with all that you’ve gone through. But I want you to know that my feelings haven’t changed.”

He places a hand against Noctis’s cheek, and Noctis leans into the touch.

“Mine haven’t, either,” Noctis whispers.

He listens to Ignis breathe for a moment. Wonders what expression has taken over his face. Wonders what those eyes would be saying to him, right now, if he could see.

“Noct,” he asks at last, “may I kiss you?”

“ _Yes._ ” The word is an emphatic exhale.

Ignis stands between Noctis’s knees and leans down to him. His lips are warm, his cheeks hot when Noctis brings his hands up to meet them. He imagines that Ignis is blushing, has been since his confession. If he knew for sure, he would probably tease Ignis about it, but as it is, he just wants to feel all that he can.

Noctis parts his lips, and Ignis does the same, leading to slow, sensual, open-mouthed kisses, kisses that lead Ignis to slide his tongue along Noctis’s lower lip. Noctis sighs and pulls him closer. He needs Ignis. He needs his steadiness, his balance, his warmth. Ignis dips his head to kiss Noctis’s neck, not aggressively enough to mark him, but Noctis responds all the same. His voice escapes him in soft hums of pleasure.

He pulls Ignis toward him, an attempt to coax him onto the bed, but Ignis resists. “Wait,” he murmurs, short of breath. “I don’t think now is a good time.”

Noctis pauses. “It’s the scars, isn’t it?”

“No—no, of course not.” Ignis presses a soft kiss to the side of his mouth. “You may have these scars now, Noctis, but you’ve always had scars, and I’ve always loved them.” Another kiss, one that Noctis tries to return. “You’re no less beautiful than you were before.”

“But you . . .” Noctis hesitates, afraid that his voice will break. “You’ve known me so long without them. And I haven’t seen them, but . . .” He reaches up to touch one side of his face, where he knows the scars rake across his eyelid and cheek. “They can’t be beautiful.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ignis whispers. “Noctis, I love you.”

Gods, gods. If anything should have shaken Ignis’s loyalty to him, it should have been this. And yet. Somehow he’s known all this time that Ignis has loved him, the fact surfacing in all of his actions, in everything he’s done for Noctis. The confession should be surprising, considering all the time they spent trying not to pursue a relationship, but it isn’t. Still, Noctis’s heart races at his words.

“I love you, too,” he breathes. “Of course.” He wraps his arms around Ignis, pulling him close, inhaling the scent of his skin, his clothes.

But one question still prods at the back of his mind. “Why did you refuse?”

Ignis sighs. Noctis feels his breath ruffle the hair at the back of his neck. “Because you deserve better than this,” he says at last, voice low. “You need time to adjust. I want you to feel better before you decide. And I don’t want to hurt you.”

He deserves—they both deserve—better than sleeping together spontaneously in a hotel room in half-ravaged Altissia, a room probably without much real privacy, on a morning when Noctis can’t even see the sunrise, when he still hasn’t recovered from his injuries and feels like a burden even to his closest friends, is what he means. Fair enough. Noctis nods, and Ignis draws back slightly.

“Will you stay?” he asks, cautious.

“Of course.” Ignis presses a kiss to his cheekbone, where the scars stop. “Noctis, I will always stay with you, no matter what. I promise.”

Noctis hums a quiet thank you. “Then, right now . . .” He reaches for Ignis’s hand. His fingertips brush the bare skin of Ignis’s wrist, first, and their hands find each other only when Ignis reaches out to correct the path of Noct’s. “Would you . . . lie down with me for a few minutes? I’m still sleepy.”

“Yes, Noct.”

Noctis can almost hear him smile.

A few minutes later, Ignis is lying beside him, his body a protective wall between Noctis and whatever they might have to face next. It doesn’t matter whether he can see the beams of sunlight passing through the windows or not, because he can feel his advisor’s warmth.

And for now, that’s all he needs.

**Author's Note:**

> Jeez sorry about all the emotional Ignoct fics this week... X'D I just have so many feelings about Episode Ignis ~


End file.
